Joseph D’Orazio, MD, an addiction medicine specialist within Cooper University Health Care’s Center for Healing, its division of Addiction Medicine, participated in a panel discussion on recovery from substance use disorder hosted at WHYY last month.
Hosted by Maiken Scott, the host and creative director of WHYY’s science program “The Pulse,” the panel followed a brief screening of “Reframe and Reclaim: Shaping the Future of Recovery Stories,” a documentary series telling the story of our region’s response to the opioid epidemic. Dr. D’Orazio was featured in the series, along with Beckie Deo, a certified peer recovery specialist and supervisor of medical care coordinators at Cooper’s Center for Healing.
A major topic of both the series and the discussion was the hurdles that stand between someone struggling with a use disorder and recovery. All participants on the panel agreed that stigma is a significant hurdle for those affected and, while it has lessened in the last decade, challenges stemming from stigma remain.
“A lot of people think that a use disorder is a moral failing, that these people have decided to go down this path and this is where they want to be and they need to decide to stop,” Dr. D’Orazio said. “It’s a daily effort for me to explain that this is a chronic medical disease just like diabetes is.”
Other barriers to care discussed were onerous requirements for different treatment centers and the difficulty of finding quality care. The panel agreed it is essential to lower these barriers as much as possible and meet people where they are to make receiving care effortless. The Center for Healing has a daily walk-in clinic and a mobile health clinic where people can be treated by addiction medicine specialists without appointments.
“On-demand care is so important to caring for this use disorder because sometimes people have a fleeting thought of recovery and if they have to wait three days to see somebody, it’s gone,” Dr. D’Orazio said. “We need to be ready 24/7 to take people in for care and we need it on every level.”
When asked about the future of addiction medicine and caring for those struggling with opioid use, panelists said they appreciated how far the field has come and think things will improve further as more people come to understand the nature of this health condition and treat it as such.
“When I finished training as an emergency physician … I didn’t know this was a fellowship I could do. Today, I see a lot of people looking at addiction medicine as a great way to get involved and make a difference. We’re bringing really good doctors into this space,” Dr. D’Orazio said. “I have a lot of hope.”
The documentary series was sponsored and produced by Braeburn, a maker of medications commonly used to treat opioid use disorder, and featured advocates and health care providers across the Camden and Philadelphia region who are helping those affected by opioid use disorder.
“It was an honor to share my recovery story for this documentary series,” Deo said. “Stigma is a serious barrier that keeps lifesaving care out of reach of the people that need it the most. We should all be working to reduce the stigma around addiction and make addiction care as easy to access as possible.”
The panel discussion also included other individuals who were featured in the documentary series include Kali Lamb, a criminal records paralegal for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia; Sarah Andersen, a clinical research coordinator; and Britt James Carpenter, the founder of the Philly Unknown Project.